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Roy Schestowitz

Advanced Guestbook Spam

Spam can be combatted by preventing homepages (URL's) from ever being displayed publicly. The intent of spammers is to boost their ranking by inserting Web addresses into popular pages. In Advanced Guestbook 2, one can nullify homepage by changing the following PHP file:

  • INSTALLATION_DIRECTORY/lib/add.class.php

Replace the following lines:


if (!eregi("^http://[_a-z0-9-]+\\.[_a-z0-9-]+", $this->url)) {
$this->url = '';
}
if (htmlspecialchars($this->url) != "$this->url") {
$this->url = '';
}

with just:


$this->url = '';

The only issue then becomes the inability to distinguish genuine entries from spam. This page was added to assist other Advanced Guestbook users and put a stop to spam.

UPDATE: I now use the release candidate (RC1) from Carbinize. It appears to be immune to widespread forms of spam.
This page was last modified on June 5th, 2005 Maintained by Roy Schestowitz